Social Innovations for Circularity in the Built Environment – a Scoping Review and Classification. Supplementary Data to the Bibliometric Review.

To transition the built environment (BE) towards circularity, i.e., maximizing the time resources spend in the BE, thus minimizing negative environmental impacts of resource usage, social innovations (SI) – understood as new ways of doing, organizing, framing, and knowing – are just as important as technological advancements. This article provides an overview of the state of the knowledge regarding SI that contribute to circularity in the BE, and proposes a framework for coherently classifying such SI in terms of their main categories and effects.

To identify and understand the current knowledge regarding social innovations (SI) that contribute to circularity in the built environment (BE), a bibliometric review of scientific literature is conducted. It shows that the term social innovation is not frequently used in this contexts although the buzzwords circularity and circular economy are themselves often framed as SI. To assess the characteristics and contribution of SI to circularity in the BE, a scoping review that includes grey literature into the context was conducted and a framework developed to classify predominant SI using concepts from transition studies as well as the systems thinking approach. The framework is designed to help assess the potential of SI and to identify research and/or action gaps. Key findings are (1) There is a broad diversity of SIs that contribute to circularity in the BE already in the focus of research, although they are not always identified as such; (2) Most SI focus on either the design or the demolition phase (i.e., market related phases), whereas user-centered SI are less frequently discussed; and (3) It is crucial to also consider potential sustainability goal conflicts in order to guide policies that address SI as a solution.

These datasets are the basis to the bibliometric literature review.